Under Fire

Heard a guy call in to a radio show about a month or two ago. I don’t remember what the topic was, but he managed to neatly encapsulate something I’ve been thinking for a long time about people who argue. It’s nothing original, by any stretch; mystery shows have been making note of this throughout all of the twentieth century. Super-sleuth will inform the husband that he’s a widower now, his wife was found dead a few hours ago and could he explain his whereabouts? And the husband will reply “I’m telling you, I didn’t shoot her!” Super-sleuth says to the husband, or to his sidekick after husband leaves…ya know, I never said anything about her being shot.

Moral of the story is, sometimes when we say stuff, the wise listener will pay only a little bit of attention to what we’re actually saying, and a great deal more attention to the necessity that appears to have arisen for us to get it said. And what that might mean.

Or as the caller to the radio program said, “My dad always told me when you throw a rock into a pack of wild dogs, the one that yelps is the one you hit.”

Well, there’s a whole lot of yelping dogs right about now because of this new movie out, “The Path to 9/11” starring Harvey Keitel. The film purports to be an unbiased, non-partisan look at all the things that went on in the world of intelligence, subterfuge, politics, military operations, etc. before the September 11 attacks came about. Non-partisan it may be, but apparently it’s pretty tough on the Clinton administration and this has created some bad feeling in people because…well, I’ll let this commentator speak for himself, since he’s seen it and I haven’t.

Regardless of ones political leanings, I think it is despicable for 9/11 to be fictionalized and history rewritten simply for political gain. Does ABC have no shame? Are the nearly 3000 lost souls of that horrific day just political tools, now?

I have no problem with a FACTUAL documentary on the events leading up to 9/11. There is plenty of blame to go around, to both democratic and republican administrations. Telling the truth is always a great way to go. But to completely falsify information, and then LIE about falsifying it, especially about an event still so painful to many people, is just way below acceptable.

I seem to recall when CBS tried to “fictionalize” a Reagan “docudrama”, the conservatives and republicans were so incensed that the program was finally pulled. Are those same people going to be equally incensed about this “swiftboating” debacle?

Yeah, it’s fictionalized. And the one piece of fictionalizing that is causing angst more than any other piece, has to do with this…

In one scene, CIA operatives working with Ahmed Shah Masud, the charismatic Afghan mujahedin leader who fought al-Qaida and their Taliban sponsors, are assembled on a hillside above bin Laden’s residence at Tarnak Farms. “It’s perfect for us,” says “Kirk,” a composite character representing several of the CIA operatives and analysts involved in the hunt for the terrorist leader.

But the team is forced to abort the mission when Berger hangs up on them in the middle of a conference call, after telling them he cannot give the go ahead for the action. “I don’t have that authority,” he says.

“Are there any men in Washington,” Masud asks Kirk afterwards in the film, “or are they all cowards?”

See, it’s “fiction” in the sense that there’s no such thing as “Kirk”…there’s no such thing as Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot, he was a composite of Francis Marion and Daniel Morgan. This leads to a lot of lines in the script that “didn’t happen.” Or, to take another Gibson movie as an example, Braveheart didn’t knock up Queen Isabella, nor could he have.

It’s stylization. Limited meddling with the factual events, for the sake of a better presentation. Whether the meddling goes over the top is a matter of opinion, but some meddling is necessary for the format.

That’s what Thomas Kean, Co-Chairman of the 9/11 Commission himself, said in the film’s defense.

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, the co-chair of the Sept. 11 commission and an adviser to the miniseries, said in its defense that “for dramatic and narrative purposes, there are scenes that are fictionalized in some ways because they’re composites of what took place. You have to do that in a miniseries.”

And yet the “big” events are still consistent with the truth. And there’s no better evidence of that, than the sense of urgency in all the yelping.

But this yelp impressed me more than any other. It’s from Sandy Berger himself.

A statement from Samuel “Sandy” Berger, who was national security adviser to President Bill Clinton at the time, calls the scenes involving him “complete fabrications.”
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“The incidents depicted did not happen,” said Berger in the statement. “They are not contained in the Sept. 11 Commission report, which is the most authoritative review of the events before and after the attack.”

Get a load of that. The man who smuggled confidential documents out of the archives in his pants…took them home, illegally…shredded who-knows-what. They can’t even find out what he shredded. He’s intoning to us we should believe only what’s in the 9/11 Commission report, and disbelieve anything that’s not in it. When, thanks to his own actions, it’s impossible to tell what couldn’t have made it in…because nobody was able to find it. It was shredded, BY HIM.

Anyway, there’s more yelping going on over here and here, and I’m also admiring the fisking job that was done over here.

It will be discussed much in the days ahead, I think. And it’s interesting how many of the headlines contain those two words “under fire.” The film is under fire. Isn’t it great to be a liberal? Liberals, it seems, get to decide what’s “under fire.” When’s the last time a hit piece on a conservative was “under fire”? Was that silly Reagan film ever “under fire”?

Update: Blogger friend Buck Pennington found, thanks to the New York Post, the biggest yelp of them all.

Update: Threat! h/t Hot Air, via Jawa.

Update: This is a must-read too.

Update: Neal Boortz has a few points to add to this. Points well worth reading.

Update 9/10/06: Thanks to the left-wing website Think Progress, I managed to trip across a copy of Sandy Berger’s letter over here.

The Other Border

I just had this pop into my head the other night, during the inky blackness long before dawn, when a man’s wakeful state calls his very sanity into question. I’m sure someone else has thought of it before, but such a rumination has not made its way to me except from between my own two ears.

Let us play devil’s advocate on the whole “border” issue, and collect every argument anyone’s ever heard before, on why we should just leave the border problem alone. Why we should go ahead and let all the illegal immigrants in. Why we should make the border more porous. A lot of people are walking around, after all, who feel that’s the right way to go.

Gather all their arguments. Let’s see, what do we have here…this is a “nation of immigrants,” and allowing immigrants easier access to our country and its resources, is consistent with our heritage. What else. There’s the “don’t be so rigid” argument that says a strong, civilized republic recognizes a time to flex a little bit on the rule of law, especially when following that law makes us bitchy and mean. Okay. What else? The “Archie Bunker” argument, intoning, correctly, that an all-or-nothing attitude about our nation’s border in some cases belies out-and-out bigotry and racism and small-mindedness. Got it. What else? There’s the “How would it make YOU feel?” argument that says, if you or I were the illegal immigrant in question, we’d hop the fence too, so we’re a bunch of hypocrites if we take extraordinary measures to keep someone else from doing so.

I’m sure the “let ’em all in” crowd has a number of other important points to make, that I may have missed.

Make your own list. Got it together?

Now…let’s turn to the subject of letting God into our schools. Do they apply, or not?

Oy.

Majority Leader We Can Spare?

President Lincoln, placed under pressure to relieve General Ulysses Grant after the battle of Shiloh, famously responded, “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”

If you need a reminder that a lot of asphalt has been put down since 1862 and we just don’t think the same way as we did back then, chew on this. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who, as it is, may not be in that position too much longer, had this to say about passing an immigration bill before the elections:

I think it would be next to impossible to pass a comprehensive bill that includes dealing with the diversity of 12 million people here in the next three weeks.

Gosh Dr. Frist, I guess what you’re saying, then, is it’s next to impossible for you to keep your job.

Can we spare this Majority Leader? It would appear from the looks of things, that thanks to his decisions and not anybody else’s, we’re going to be sparing him pretty soon.

He doesn’t fight.

Memo For File XXIV

Quoth Ann Coulter in Slander at the beginning of Chapter Seven, p. 121:

The Joy of Arguing with Liberals: You’re Stupid!

If liberals were prevented from ever calling Republicans dumb, they would be robbed of half their arguments…Like clockwork, every consequential Republican to come down the pike is instantly, invariably, always, without exception called “dumb.”

This is how six-year-olds argue: They call everything “stupid.” The left’s primary argument is the angry reaction of a helpless child deprived of the inability to mount logical counterarguments…The “you’re stupid” riposte is part of the larger liberal tactic of refusing to engage ideas.

Quoth Aristotle on the definition of an educated mind: It is “…to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Submitted for your approval: The FARK thread about President Bush appointing Clay Aiken to the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Difficulties.

Huh. It would appear Annie is on to something here. So is Ari.

Any ideas on why the “dumb” ones are always Republicans?

1) It’s a false observation, Democrats are ridiculed for being stupid just as often as Republicans.

2) Because Republicans really are dumb, and somehow, there’s something at work to ensure Democrats are always smart.

3) …?

So You Hate Blogs, Do You II

Aw lookee what we have here…another person who hates blogs. How cute.

“Blog” itself is short for “weblog,” which is short for “we blog because we weren’t very popular in high school and we’re trying to gain respect and admiration without actually having to be around people.”

Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you’re about as likely to find someone else interested in it. One popular technique for building readership is to send e-mail to more well-trafficked blogs offering to exchange links with them. One popular response from those blogs is to laugh derisively and hit the Delete button.

The snippet about not being very popular in high school is particularly painful, it’s like twisting the knife. Ooh, that hurt. Excuse me, I’m going to have my mom bring a cup of warm milk down here in the basement so I can curl up in my pajamas with my teddy bear and suck my thumb. A few episodes of Dawson’s Creek and I should be good as new.

Look, Sjoberg, this may come as a shock…but people who were “very popular in high school” are generally pretty fucking irritating. Truth be told, I’d much rather be shipwrecked with a bunch of people who weren’t very popular in high school, than with a bunch of people who were. I mean, ignore the problems with the stuck-up snotty valley girl bitches for a second or two — the nerds and I, would have all that cool stuff made out of bamboo. People who were popular in high school? What the fuck can they do anyway. Tell them to smash something, give them a rock, and you’ll just get back a blank stare. That’s if you can get them to put down their cell phone and hold the rock.

Is there a more delusional character, anywhere, than the guy who hates blogs? Blogging is a medium of communication; give me an idea, no matter what it is, I can find a blog in favor of that idea somewhere, and another blog arguing against it. Hating blogs, is like hating paper, or the letter “S,” or hating b-flat. Makes no sense. But people do it anyway.

I have noticed there are a lot of people walking around who have devoted their entire lives to cultivating what could be called the “gift of gab.” Placed in situations where the g.o.g. enjoys less than pivotal usefulness, they become quite emotional. They don’t need anyone to point out to them, the situations that call for something besides refined verbal delivery skills. They don’t need anyone pointing that out…just seeing it for themselves, really sets them off. Really gets ’em going. It’s like they’ve got a great big hole in their lives, a hole they can forget most of the time, and they’ve just been reminded of it.

There’s a certain fragility to them. Kind of like the woman who took her husband back after he slept with her best friend, with a promise that from this day forward we shall never mention her name ever again…and just found out he’s been having trysts with her at lunchtime every day, and got her pregnant too. It’s like a real deep-rooted insecurity has been probed, and this insecurity has something to do with their position in life itself. It seems the g.o.g. folks peaked early — like, before the high school in which they were oh-so-popular — and they damn well know it, they’d prefer to forget it, and the blogs just remind them of it.

Shut Up and … ?

Pity the poor “Dixie Chicks,” but pity their fans a little more. Back in May, Martie Maguire, speaking for the whole group apparently, said she didn’t “want those kinds of fans” anymore.

“I’d rather have a small following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith,” Maguire said. “We don’t want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do.”

So…the fans tuned out. Interestingly, Maguire was making her comment as part of a media swing to promote, among other products, their single “Not Ready To Make Nice.” A single released in celebration of the band’s pissy attitude, I guess.

So…the fans tuned out.

So…now the band has a new softball docudrama out called “Shut Up And Sing,” about their dismal ticket sales.

Filmmakers have created a nonchronological story to emphasize the Greek tragedy behind the Dixie Chicks’ spiral into country music’s public enemy No. 1. The Chicks vs. President Bush, the Chicks vs. Toby Keith, the Chicks vs. country radio — every antagonistic angle is covered, and yet Maines, Emily Robison and Martie McGuire persevere, with their chroniclers providing a sympathetic tone to their every struggle.

“Shut Up” identifies the Dixie Chicks as sincere and honest, a self-contained matriarchal community that doesn’t back down and, per the doc’s p.o.v., deserves support for its integrity alone.

Heh heh. You know what, maybe the Dixie Chicks’ fans agree entirely, and would love to show that support…but Martie Maguire won’t let them buy any tickets. She doesn’t want certain kinds of fans.

Why They Hate Fox

Isn’t it strange? The anti-war leftist loudmouth just loves to tell us why he thinks the things he thinks. Bush is a stupid idiot…and here’s a list of “Bushisms” to “prove” it. The World Trade Center was demolished by the government…and here’s the video to “prove” that. John Kerry is a war hero…and here are the medals to “prove” how brave he is.

But when it comes time to say Fox News is biased — there is no “proof” forthcoming.

Well, maybe now at least we can understand why Fox is the object of so much hatred.

Soldier’s Diary: Soldiers Came to Iraq For Each Other, No Other Reason
By Capt. Dan Sukman

When I was on leave, I had many discussions and heard many reasons why U.S. soldiers are in Iraq. The opinions varied from person to person, and when you turn on a TV, or read a paper, there always seems to be an op-ed piece with someone explaining what brought us here.

The opinions have a wide range; some will tell you we are here for the noblest of causes � to bring democracy to the freedom loving people of Iraq. Others will tell you we came over here for oil, to keep the price of oil up, and others will say to keep oil prices down. Some say we are fighting for the president, while others will say we are fighting for Halliburton.

You can read stories about soldiers who refused to come over here. Some go to Canada, others call the media to make their case. Some people make them out to be heroes. The immediate thought is they have no idea what is means to be a soldier. The real heroes in those cases are the soldiers who came over and are doing the job for them.
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We did not come here for democracy; we did not come here for oil. We came here for each other. If you cannot understand that, I am sorry, but I can explain it no further.

It must suck SO much to see men like Captain Sukman given a chance to express their views, when over half a century you’ve become accustomed to good, stalwart leftists like Walter Cronkite having the last word.

This Is Good XXII

Now this…this is my kind of humor. And to think, they aren’t even trying to be humorous. Well, maybe half-assed trying.

www.tvtropes.org…includes hundreds of priceless entries like this one…

Bond One Liner
When the hero has just killed someone, often in a gruesome manner, they do a Bond One Liner.

James Bond does this in every Bond film.

The classic Bond One Liner is typically a bad pun on the manner in which the victim was dispatched.

Examples:

* (After decapitating someone) “He really lost his head”
* (After disemboweling someone) “I’ll say this for him: he had a lot of guts.”
* (After forcing a grenade down someone’s throat) “Something he ate disagreed with him.”
* (After throwing someone to a shark) “He went out for a quick bite.”
* (After tethering someone to a rocket) “He got rather carried away.”
* (After killing someone with ninja throwing stars) “It just wasn’t in the stars for him.”

Buffy The Vampire Slayer both used and subverted this trope, as Buffy would nearly always have a Bond One Liner after (or just before) killing a baddie, but occasionally she would be mocked for using a stupid-sounding one. Also brought to the attention of the audience when Willow tries to do a One Liner in the first episode of season three (“Anne”), and when it doesn’t work out, she explains that Buffy always says something clever, and she thinks it throws the bad guys off their guard.

Note that while William Peterson’s one liners on CSI and Jerry Orbach’s on Law And Order are often similar in content, they fail the test for this trope, as Grissom and Briscoe were never the killers. But see: Grissom One Liner.

For added entertainment, flip forward to the pages on the Six Million Dollar Man, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Incredible Hulk and MacGyver.

Very cool find.

Must-Tards X

Feminists, do you want to hold Linda Hirshman up as your representative? Do ya? Do ya really?

MINDY FARABEE: Why do you take issue with what you call “choice feminism”? Why not live and let live?

LINDA HIRSHMAN: When women opt out, and make what they call in preemptive language a “personal choice,” they’re doing harm to two interests I have. One is they’re doing harm to themselves, and insofar that they are human beings, as a political philosopher, I’m interested in every one of them. Secondly, they’re doing harm to others. Opting out makes women dependent, it hurts other ambitious women, and it doesn’t use their full capacities. I want to have a social conversation about it.
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FARABEE: What about those who say raising children is the most important job a person can do?

HIRSHMAN: I have no idea what they mean by that. If, in fact, it were the most important thing a human being could do, then why are no men doing it? They’d rather make war, make foreign policy, invent nuclear weapons, decode DNA, paint The Last Supper, put the dome on St. Peter’s Cathedral; they’d prefer to do all those things that are much less important than raising babies?

I love these sayings, because they’re so stupid. I’ll tell you what I think is actually going on: People think that women’s lives aren’t important enough to merit a real analysis. We get aphorisms in place of analysis. Why do we say stuff like that instead of actually trying to figure out what’s going on here when it’s women whose lives are at stake? If you can make an argument for why childrearing — especially in the context that they are at school from the age of around five on for most of their waking hours — why that is the most important job, I’d like to hear that.

Got it. So if I’m a woman, and I fail to support feminism and womens’ choices, Hirshman doesn’t like me. If I do support womens’ personal choices about working vs. staying home, then maybe she’ll approve of me — BUT! — in making my “choice,” I have to choose to work, or else she still disapproves. I’m opting out, I’m making other women dependent, I’m hurting ambitious women. So it’s kind of like ordering any color Model A Ford I want, as long as it’s black. Some choice.

So to earn her approval, if I’m a woman, I have to support womens’ choice, then I have to “choose” to work.

But maybe even that won’t do the trick!

Because I could be a woman, support womens’ choice, choose to work…and then, paycheck in hand, trot down to the magazine stand and buy…Playboy for my husband, instead of Cosmopolitan or Ms. for me. Is that okay, Linda Hirshman? Probably not!

So I have to support womens’ choice in career over home, choose that for myself, cash the paycheck, not patronize Playboy, or Hooters, or The Man Show or anything advertised on Comedy Central…buy Cosmo, buy Ms., and then…VOTE REPUBLICAN! Would you approve of that?

PROBABLY NOT!

You see, once you start down this road of “Oh no, we can’t just let you live your life as you choose because you’re still attacking me”…once you go down that road, there’s no stopping. You have to keep on marching, relentlessly, unstoppably, unceasingly, until the entire world is nothing but massively-produced carbon copies of yourself. In this case, women must support womens’ choice…exercise that choice the way Hirshman wants…use that paycheck to support the products Hirshman wants supported…support her political causes…oppose the ones she doesn’t like…and, it’s logical to assume — quite illogical not to assume — a whole fistful of other crap she wants done her way.

Oh I suppose she could insist some things be done her way, and other things not be done her way…she does have that option open to her. But there’s no reason to promote such an inconsistency. No reason except political expediency, a wilfullness of upholding some objectives that are politically inexpensive, and foresaking others that are more politically costly. Nothing principled about that. Or…personal fatigue. Nothing principled about that either. The only option that remains, is to remain consistent. Micromanage everything a woman has earned the right and privilege to “choose”…or micromanage nothing. Clearly, “micromanage nothing” is an option that doesn’t appeal to Hirshman. So, she must micromanage everything.

Grreeeeeeaaaaaaatttt job, feminists. Just great. Real crusaders for womens’ liberty, you are.

Update 9/6/06: What the hell is this, “Show The World I Need To Be Slapped Silly Week” in Feminist-land? Germaine Greer, feminist expatriate from Australia, says the “Animal Kingdom has finally taken its revenge” on Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter.

Australians were outraged Wednesday over feminist writer Germaine Greer’s claim that the death of wildlife documentary maker Steve Irwin was payback from the animal world. “Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress,” Australian expatriate Greer wrote in an article in London’s Guardian newspaper. “The animal kingdom has finally taken its revenge.”
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Greer, an academic who left her native Australia in the 1960s, had written: “The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin, but probably not before a whole generation of kids in shorts seven sizes too small has learned to shout in the ears of animals with hearing 10 times more acute than theirs, determined to become millionaire, animal-loving zoo-owners in their turn.”

I tell ya…some days, it’s just good to be a man. There are nutty men out there, and there are women who are much smarter and saner than the Hirshman/Greer duo. But us guys have it good. Nobody’s making a point of picking out our most loudmouthed and psychotic specimens, and sticking microphones in their faces.

Batty women like this speak up, and they reflect poorly on all feminists…and not too well upon women in general. But thanks to their zaniness, they get all the coverage from the press. Girls, I think you should hunt down this pair and duct-tape their gaping maws shut — to safeguard your own collective reputation.

Chickies like Hirshman and Greer, they make more and more of the dreaded “chauvinist pig” wherever they go.

Sidebar Update VI

The sidebar has been updated so that this blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, can support the 2,996 Bloggers tribute to the victims of the September 11 attacks that occurred five years ago. This blog honors Joseph Holland, cheated out of everything in his natural life beyond his 33rd year, for the innocuous act of showing up for work in the World Trade Center before 8:46 a.m., just days after the birth of his first child. And, of course, we honor the memory of the 2,995 others.

The words above are lent in support of the non-partisan 2,996 Bloggers project.

What follows, are my own, not to be associated with them.

Those whose lives were cut short, cry out for us to avenge their memories. On this, all depends. Toward that end, I’m glad President Bush has achieved what he has, and I wish his administration was capable of achieving much more.

Anti-war folks who’ve been watching way too many episodes of M*A*S*H and Star Trek, are going to say this is “raw blood-lust” on my part, and it’s the wrong way to go. I recommend they educate themselves on the subtle distinction between “avenge” and “revenge”:

Avenge, revenge both imply to inflict pain or harm in return for pain or harm inflicted on oneself or those persons or causes to which one feels loyalty. The two words were formerly interchangeable, but have been differentiated until they now convey widely diverse ideas. Avenge is now restricted to inflicting punishment as an act of retributive justice or as a vindication of propriety: to avenge a murder by bringing the criminal to trial. Revenge implies inflicting pain or harm to retaliate for real or fancied wrongs; a reflexive pronoun is often used with this verb: Iago wished to revenge himself upon Othello.

Like Martin Luther King, I have a dream. I have a dream that, when & if Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants start recruiting for the next suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, or the next attack on a United States embassy, approaching men, women, children, old, young, sick, well, rich, poor…they find no takers.

Isn’t that what we all want?

Good. Then let’s just set up the scenario; make it a reality. Speak whatever language we need to speak, to make things understood. To target civilians in whatever conflict exists between Islamo-fascists and the west, whether it’s part of a suicide mission or not…is like, borrowing money from a loan shark. Running through a burr patch in Grandma’s sweater. Pissing up a rope. Tuggin’ on Superman’s cape, spittin’ into the wind, pullin’ the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger.

You don’t want to be doing it. PERIOD.

President Bush has failed to send that message. Now, that could be because of something that applies to all Presidents, due to political and economic forces that are difficult for laymen to understand. But I’m sure of one thing: Where the enemy that we’re currently fighting, is concerned…and it’s a wholly new breed of enemy, the likes of which we’ve seldom seen before…victory depends on that. Sending that message. Call it Reverse-Nike: JUST DON’T DO IT. Without that message sent, the enemy will succeed at whatever the enemy sets out to do — save for whatever the enemy resolves to do at a later time.

Osama bin Laden has put the word out that he is not to be fucked with. The United States…has not put that word out. There’s a price to be paid for fucking with bin Laden, there isn’t one to be paid for fucking with us. I’m afraid that’s as complicated as it gets. This is what has to be changed. Will a new President get that done for us? It’s doubtful. Will a new Congress? Almost certainly not.

Also, I’ve added three excellent resources. Two of them are blogs, and one of them is a satire website much better than most.

Caerdroia;
Cold Fury;
The Nose On Your Face.

On Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald makes some brilliant points about Mark Steyn’s column that appeared Saturday.

To make those points, Greenwald has to assert Steyn said a whole lot of stuff, that Steyn didn’t really say.

So, to recap: The West is like a 16-year old girl assaulted by aggressive Middle Eastern men – weak, vulnerable, humiliated, and in submission. Gay hedonist Andrew Sullivan, along with the bound and submissive Fox journalists, are the symbols of the weak, decadent West which Steyn so despises — devoid of any manly values and courage. Each week, Steyn screeches that we must wage war — aggressive, unrestrained, manly glorious war against our Enemies — because the alternative, which he fears so deeply, is to be a 16-year-old submissive girl or a gay Andrew Sullivan — the men without chests, as Warren put it. You can find this transparent dynamic in most warmongering screeds these days.

Go read up; Steyn didn’t say any of that. In fact, it would appear Steyn referred to Andrew Sullivan as “Time magazine’s gay Tory” and that really set Greenwald off, so now he’s calling Steyn, and everybody who agrees with Steyn, a bunch of big sissies.

Interestingly, if you do something Greenwald clearly doesn’t want you to do…which is to go get Steyn’s column and actually read it…you see he’s actually doing something pretty interesting. Remember how the anti-war folks were clamoring for us to understand those who wanted to attack us? Get inside the heads of the jihadist Islamo-fascists, and find out what motivates them, with an objective of perhaps finding a way to stop further violence? Steyn, it turns out, was doing exactly that thing.

Why did Greenwald choose to put an entirely different spin on it? Does this whole pro-war/anti-war thing have something to do with being gay? Is there some bizarre brotherhood at work, where one gay guy says he’s opposed to the war, and if he’s engaged in discussion by a pro-war straight guy, all homosexuals are honor-bound to dispense baseless propaganda to help the gay guy “win”? If Greenwald sees it that way, I wonder how many homosexuals support him in that vision.

Like I said, Greenwald’s points are brilliant. They’re also very insightful…a little bit too much so, it turns out. He sees things that aren’t there.

Once again, I’m left with the disturbing feeling that Greenwald intends for people to read his own comments — skipping past the link he provided to Steyn’s piece — and just take his word for what Mark Steyn said, and/or intended to say. I can’t prove it, but all the evidence is there supporting this, and this seems to be a pattern with Mr. Greenwald. In truth, I have yet to see a Greenwald piece that colored outside of these lines. It’s almost like a signature.

Personal Responsibility

This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, likes to come up with titles for it’s blog posts that reflect…themes. That’s the way life works, you’ll notice. Themes. The raging dickhole in the silver BMW 320i who cut you off on the freeway, he’s an instance, whom you’ll probably never see again…”assholes who annoy you when you drive to work” is an ongoing theme. And so we have titles that end with roman numerals. It’s cheesy, but that’s how we keep ourselves reflecting real life, or, something vaguely resembling it. Themes pop up again and again, and we “cap” them with a roman numeral.

And this thing with Australians taxing each other to raise Medicare money to change fat kids into skinny kids — when skinny kids should be cheaper than fat kids to begin with — is an instance of an ongoing theme: Personal responsibility. Now I’m not sure what is up with Labor Day, it seems to be “Personal Responsibility Day.” Or lack thereof.

We have some more things coming out today…again, these are instances of a common theme.

Like, uh, you can buy insurance in case you’re a little league coach, and get sued for yelling at some little motherfucker who uses the “F” word.

Almost everyone would agree that insurance to cover your home or car is a good idea.

How about insurance to cover your costs if your wedding gets canceled?

Or liability coverage if you’re a Little League coach and you get sued for hurting some kid’s feelings?

Or insurance to cover expenses in case you’re a victim of stalking?

The world of insurance includes all these possibilities and more. Insurance broker Kenneth Kukral calls it “oddball, weirdo stuff.”

The Insurance Information Institute calls it “niche” or “specialty” insurance. [emphasis mine]

Oddball, weirdo stuff. Yeah I’ll just bet. Some real creative genius-types in the marketing department of those noble insurance companies, are just seeking out all the nooks and crannies of ways they can protect the insurance consumer from…whatever.

Or, it could be more like…greasing the skids so lawyers can make more money. Well, I’ll leave that to the reader to decide.

In case you’re ever “sued for hurting some kid’s feelings”…sheesh.

And here’s another instance that is part of the same theme. Warning labels about keeping data secure on wireless connections. The new nanny-state law is passed in my home state…as usual.

From 1 October 2007, manufacturers must place warning labels on all equipment capable of receiving Wi-Fi signals, according to the new state law. These can take the form of box stickers, special notification in setup software, notification during the router setup, or through automatic securing of the connection. One warning sticker must be positioned so that it must be removed by a consumer before the product can be used.

The warnings would have to contain information on how to secure files, folders, and connections. Wireless internet connections can be used by anyone with Wi-Fi capability within the range of the transmitter unless they are secured.

Okay, here’s the bee up my butt.

We have lots of “soccer moms” out there demanding 55-mile-an-hour speed limits, and draconian gun control laws. “Real” people are out there, wanting that stuff…I don’t agree with them, but they are real people. They do exist.

We do not have “real” people demanding new medicare plans to teach chubby kids to be thin.

We do not have “real” people demanding new insurance policies in case little-league coaches are sued for hurting widdle kiddoes feeeeewwwings.

We do not have “real” people taking to the streets with pitchforks and torches, demanding WiFi warning labels.

We have lawyers wanting more ways of making money.

That is ALL we have here.

All the world over, people put up with this, and I don’t understand why they do. It’s like, when your house is already on fire, throwing a few more matches on it. Or when your car’s emergency brake has failed and it’s rolling downhill, running behind it, and giving it a good PUSH.

We have “soccer moms” who demand silly nanny-state rules, like you can’t keep score in a soccer game. Or you have to rip things out of an amusement park that might result in an occasional skinned knee on the poor widdle babums. And warning labels, and more warning labels.

They are politically powerful. Nobody wants to fuck with the soccer moms. They win, a lot more often than they lose.

Why do their political agendas have to be supplemented, with a bunch of blood-sucking lawyers who want to make more money, demanding all kinds of additional ridiculous legislative/litigatorial machinery, for which the soccer moms didn’t even ask?

Someday, I’d like to pass the bar and become a lawyer, just to find out how this works. We absolutely abhore people who are rich, who mutilate the way our society works, the implied social contracts between us, for no higher purpose than to become richer. Somehow, when it’s lawyers…we give ’em a pass. And the new laws they want — they get. Nobody stands in their way.

I honestly don’t understand it.

Jocularity

The British Royal Family has another scandal, and Colbert gets the giggles.

Is It Okay To Call Them Unpatriotic Now?

Mein Blogovault…good place to find out what’s going on. From there, we learn about this thing which speaks for itself over at Flopping Aces.

Includes a dissertation on whether the clip was made by a liberal or not. It’s valid to record the evidence saying so, but as a practical matter — anyone who contests it, is never going to be convinced anyway.

My method would be quicker: It appears there is a large faction of connected, or unconnected, persons and/or organizations ready to blame lots of things on America, and to credit the United States with absolutely nothing positive in the world. Constantly sliming America, constantly bashing America, constantly calling attention to the skeletons in America’s closet.

Maybe those folks are liberals, maybe they aren’t.

Maybe being a liberal is all about joining that crew, maybe it isn’t.

If this is NOT what being a liberal is all about…let us see some well-known liberals take on the America bashers and try to beat ’em. Liberals seem to be pretty capable of throwing around some pretty nasty words; let’s see them throw some in the direction of the America bashers, if they aren’t all part of the same crowd.

Let’s see it happen. Not holding my breath.

I’m a Lardass Because You Don’t Spend Enough Money

This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, makes it a regular habit to probe the thoughts we have that widen the already-gaping chasm between public policy, and public policy that would make some sense. And in that pursuit, we are drawn to, and re-drawn to, and re-drawn to again and again and again, like a moth to a flame…the never-ending issue of people finding new things to worry about, wombat-rabies bollywonkers crazy things, when a little bit too much time has slipped by since they’ve had something real to worry about.

Er, about which to worry.

Heh. I’m an example of my own point. Roofs over our heads, food in our guts, you even understand what I’m saying just fine and dandy…and least, with a couple of re-reads, you do…and here we are obsessing over the prepositions I end my sentences with. Well, anyway. Back to the subject at hand.

We just don’t think the same way after Beowulf brings in Grendel’s head, as we do an hour before. The candy machines are installed. The breakrooms in which those candy machines sit, have linoleum and power. The buildings housing those breakrooms, have good foundations, and the swamps that once lay in the spots where those buildings sit on their foundations, have been cleared. Naturally, before the swamps were drained, the snakes were killed. And now that people have nothing more worthy of their carping and complaining, besides the machines eating the dollar and not dropping the right candy…on the very spot where poisonous snakes once slithered…about what shall we worry?

How about this?

THERE now are more overweight people than undernourished, organisers of an international obesity conference claim. The escalating problem, particularly in children, could make today’s generation the first to die before its parents.
:
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows almost 70,000 extra South Australian adults have joined the growing ranks of obesity since 2001. In 2004-05, 18 per cent, or about 202,800, were obese; 32 per cent, or about 370,000, were overweight. In 2001, 15 per cent, or about 168,400, were obese and 30 per cent, or about 335,800, were overweight.

Campbelltown mother-of-three Kerry Scerri is conscious of protecting her children from becoming obese or overweight.

“I put on extra weight and I know what it’s like to feel uncomfortable with yourself, feel unhappy and wonder what people are saying about you,” said Mrs Scerri, who has been a life member of Jenny Craig for 15 years. “I don’t want to put my kids through that.”

The Dietitians Association of Australia has called on the Federal Government to:

RECOGNISE obesity as a chronic disease under Medicare.

PROVIDE a significant financial commitment to help struggling Australian families get the skills and support they need to feed their families properly. [CAPS in original]

Woo hoo! Things must be going great in Australia. Looks like a few too many opera houses have gone up since anyone has had to worry about losing a leg to a Great White shark, or getting kicked in the head by a kangaroo, or having a dingo eat one of their babies.

It just goes to show what I’ve been saying all along: Too much civilization. Once the snakes are killed and the swamps are drained and the buildings built and the candy machines installed…we, as a species, appear to be incapable of conducting our lives the way we did when we were killing those snakes. We can’t think the same way. It’s like a chunk of our collective brain goes missing. Once the concerns are addressed, the new priority becomes to find more concerns.

Which is fine by itself, I suppose, as long as it’s a linear process. When you have what it takes to build a ten-story building, it’s just the human instinct for progress to try to find a way to build a twenty-story building…and it makes sense that we’re incapable of worrying about twenty-story buildings when the swamp has not yet been cleared so the foundation can be set. Put some buildings on this continent, when you’re done, put some buildings on that continent over there — then, build a spaceship, and conquer space. Progress.

But this is not a linear process. Not when you have egghead scientists twisting the arm of the Australian government to give money to fat people, so fat people might stop being fat…which, I’ll wager, nobody anywhere is going to bet some serious coin or some left testicles is what’s really going to happen.

No, this is a cyclical process. This is an empire getting ready to fall. Only the brain-damaged can recite this in a one-line summary, with a straight face. We got all these fleshy kids…we’re worried that a whole generation of Augustus Gloops could expire before their parents because they’re so chubby…government has to appropriate some funds, to give these porkers and their parents the skills they need to thin the kids down. Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh…right.

No, here is the next thing about which the international community can get worried, now that the swamps are cleared and the buildings are built. How about this: Scientists, who have figured out that if their research says the right stuff, it will have a positive effect on their grant money. It’s been a problem for a long time now. Give me anyone willing to argue with me about it and tell me it’s not a problem, I can change their mind, toot-sweet, simply by citing some scientific research such a critic would happen to not like, and I’ll have an instant convert. In other words, we all know this is true, some of us just choose an opportune time to admit it.

And so what we have come to call “science” is now something quite different from what science really is…and we are blind. We have been commanded — or Australia has been commanded, anyhow — to take as our next priority in the continuing human struggle, the appropriation of public funds to turn fat kids into not-so-fat kids. EXCUUUUUUSE ME…it’s cheaper to make a skinny kid, in the first place, than a tub-o-goo. Turning out skinny kids instead of fat kids, should produce a freakin’ savings — from whence arises the necessity to pay for it?

I mean, I’m sure there’s a decent answer to the question…but how come nobody seems to at least be asking it in the first place?

Thing I Know #113. A crisis precedes logical thinking. Logical thinking precedes a solution to the crisis. Too long a time without a crisis, precedes indulgence and sloppy thinking. Indulgence and sloppy thinking precede the next crisis.
Thing I Know #125. They tell me rules are needed for civilization, but I notice civilization is needed for the rules. Civilization arises from where a wild frontier was tamed. On the taming of a wild frontier by a rulebook, history stands mute.
Thing I Know #130. The noble savage gives us life. Then we outlaw his very existence. We call this process “civilization.” I don’t know why.
Thing I Know #146. The day a lingering challenge finally abates, atrophy starts setting in. People lose their capacity for dealing with the challenge; slowly on their own, and much more quickly in groups.

Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot… IV

What the–

Did he just kill off Jan??

Completely Uncalled For

Okay, now after that last one let’s go for something light. One of my son’s favorite jokes…transformed…

Fumento on AIDS

In ’93, my mother died from a cancerous brain tumor. I was a subscriber to the American Spectator, and I couldn’t help but notice the irony, given my personal situation, in the writings of one Michael Fumento.

Bill Clinton was a brand-new President back then, and he was bound and determined to make sure that what our Government spent on the AIDS epidemic, as vast a sum as that may have been under the administration of George H. W. Bush, be nevertheless multiplied. Which, in due course, it was.

It’s 2006. We still have AIDS.

What took my mother’s life thirteen years ago, was something we had been reading about clear back in the seventies: Cancer. Cancer of this, Cancer of that. And the irony is not lost on me: In order to catch AIDS, you have to do…certain things which we will leave unmentioned in this forum. To catch cancer, you have to do…who knows what? Sunbathe, eat lots of salty food. Well, my mother did neither one of those, but in 1991 she figured out her brain was working, you know, not quite properly. So she went in for a CAT Scan, and lo and behold, there was a cloud. Eighteen months later she was worm food.

Now I ask you. What’s scarier? I mean, really.

So while I freely confess to a personal bias, nevertheless, regardless of the reason, I am solidly on the Fumento bandwagon.

Fumento likens a rational analysis of the AIDS crisis, which is sadly lacking, nowadays…to John Snow’s analysis of the cholera epidemic in mid-nineteenth-century London.

The entire science of epidemiology � which began when London physician John Snow determined that cholera cases in his city clustered around a single water pump � depends on identifying risk factors to ameliorate them. In Snow�s case, he simply removed the pump handle and the epidemic ended.

He was lucky he didn�t have to deal with activists carrying signs reading: “Water doesn�t cause cholera; ignorance and prejudice cause cholera!”

Indeed. Isn’t it funny? What we call “science” plays this game of leapfrog with what we call “truth”…sometimes in front of it, sometimes over it, sometimes under it, sometimes in back of it. But never are the two concepts more distant, than when mind-boggling numbers of human lives are at stake.

Found more info on the John Snow Pump Handle thingy over here.

Happy reading.

This Is Good XXI

Wuzzadem on the Plame fiasco. Of course this is from April, but it’s not as if anything’s changed since then.

Oh it has? Or…sorry, I can’t remember. Oh well. Funny stuff. Does what good humor should do: It reflects reality.

Press Alt Tab, The Boss Is Coming

Nobody ever reads this blog, especially on Fridays, but if anybody is reading blogs on a Friday we all know what that means: They’re too lazy to do any more work, everybody else is too lazy to count on them for anything anyway, but they’re not quite out the door on the way home just yet because they’re too lazy to shut down the computer.

Hey I’m in your corner guys. We champion hard work here, and coming through in a pinch when people are counting on you for stuff…but who the hell’s counting on anybody on a Friday afternoon? And for the guy who brings home the bacon, let’s face it…paychecks to deposit, movies to rent, take-out food and dry-cleaning to pick up, getting the family fed by seven, asshole drivers everywhere…the logistics before the weekend can get a little thick. So I understand, a little bit of lighter fare in the blogosphere is kind of welcome.

Who better to provide it than Holtie’s House (his website generally NSFW though).

AUSSIE COMPUTER TERMINOLOGY

LOG ON: Adding wood to make the barbie hotter.

LOG OFF: Not adding any more wood to the barbie.

MONITOR: Keeping an eye on the barbie.

DOWNLOAD: Getting the firewood off the ute.

HARD DRIVE: Making the trip back home without any
cold tinnies.

KEYBOARD: Where you hang the ute keys.

WINDOW: What you shut when the weather’s cold.

SCREEN: What you shut in the mozzie season.

BYTE: What mozzies do.

Read the whole thing…

Just An Observation

I’m forty, which, for those of you under forty, means some things; they’ll come as no surprise to you. My body has begun to give me subtle clues that it’s time for the long shutdown process to start. By the time I’m fifty, it will make those clues un-subtle, and convey them to everyone around me as well. I have doubts that my career is paying back all the energy I have invested into it. I’m reassured by the fact that many forty-year-olds have the same concern, but that very few fifty- and sixty-year-olds seem to. So in the next few years, either the concern itself will pass into oblivion, or my opportunity to do something about it will go there.

I think I know things because I’m forty. A lot of people think I need more time before I know anything. I see nearly all of those folks are under forty.

Here’s one thing I notice…it’s not pithy enough to be a Thing I Know, so I’ll just jot it down here.

I have learned a lot of people who want to sell me things, have settled into a habit of making the sale by comparing their product to someone else’s. They tell me their product does far better at the same job.

A lot of the time…most of the time…given the opportunity to prove themselves, these people fail. I find that to be a little curious, because one would think if these people were out-and-out lying, their claims would be verified through a process having to do with random chance. They would fail fifty percent of the time. But they fail, more like, I dunno…sixty…seventy…higher than that. Subconciously, over time, I have come to regard the experience of “Hey! It really does work better than the other guy!” as a narrow, epochal, exception to the rule, which over time almost never works out that way.

So I’m left to conclude the “My stuff is better than Brand X” is a harbinger for a failed experiment, should I be so inclined to provide the opportunity.

One of the tactics I see that seems to intensify the potential for failure, is something I have come to call the “Gonnadooz versus Havdunz” approach. It’s an indicator that the salesman is lying about the superiority of what he provides, and is acutely aware that his product is, in fact, inferior. It works like this. You pitch me something…you compare the service you provide to an equivalent service provided by the other guy. You talk about what the other guy does, you go on and on about the history of what he’s been doing, shining the light in the direction that accentuates the blemishes. That’s the “Havdunz.” And then you talk about what you will do. That’s the “Gonnadooz.”

You can’t point out the blemishes of a “Gonnadooz,” because there aren’t any yet. It’s like pointing out the warts of a ghost. It’s just an ethereal vision, nothing more. So it’s an unequal comparison. Prospective customers may be forgiven for overlooking the hobbling effect that this has on the comparison vehicle. But the salesman built that vehicle. He must know.

Sometime earlier this summer, I went to the Democratic National Committee website and told them I was a Democrat who was interested in getting Howard Dean’s updates. I have noticed the Chairman’s updates all use this tactic…religiously…as if Dr. Dean had someone in the room ready to stomp his testicles should he fail to work it in. Havdunz…what a boondoggle Iraq has been, and what Katrina was…versus Gonnadooz…the “Democrats have a vision of” stuff.

I particularly get a kick out of the vision for rooting out corruption. Great work there, Howard.

Anyway, the Democrats have something to sell. The way they act, they know what they’re selling, is inferior. At forty, I have come to learn when people have confidence in what they’re selling…or even if they don’t, if they suspect their own product is inferior to Brand X, but aren’t quite sure about it…they shy away from Gonnadooz versus Havdunz. This is a tactic used only by the guy who is selling snake oil, and knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this is what he’s selling.

So You Hate Blogs, Do You

What we call “blogging,” is nothing more than a medium of communication. There are people who hate it, and of all the misguided souls in our midst I have come to seriously doubt the existence of a more delusional character than the blog-hater.

Blog-haters are truly amazing people, gifted in the art of using truly amazing logic. It just bowls me over that they can even drum up enough brainwave activity and cohesive, organized thought to get dressed in the morning. I don’t get them. Even the ones engaged in a livelihood put lately at risk, or even in severe jeopardy, by “blogging”; I can understand their motives, but beyond that, I can’t figure ’em out, and I’m particularly mystified by their success at, simply, being. HOW do they work? Each one of them, beat millions of other sperm. How is this possible?

Cold Fury gives a great example of what I’m talking about. USA Today’s Bruce Kluger:

If ever America needed a wake-up call about the mythology of blogging, we got it this month.

On Aug. 8, Connecticut businessman Ned Lamont defeated U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary, a triumph widely credited to the rah-rah racket produced by pro-Lamont armies stationed along the Internet.

Indeed, the bloggers had scored big. They had helped vault a local politician to national prominence and cemented the Iraq war as Issue No. 1 in the congressional elections. Not a bad day.

But their victory was short-lived. Even before the primary, Lieberman announced that, should he lose, he’d still run in November as an independent. This electoral chutzpah effectively rope-a-doped the bloggers and recharged the senator’s fabled Joe-mentum. Lieberman’s still the man to beat in the general election.

If this wasn’t enough to drain the effervescence from the blogger bubbly, America’s noisy Web wags were dealt an even more sobering blow 10 days later when Snakes on a Plane opened nationwide to a decidedly flat $15.3 million box office.

Before its premiere, Snakes had been the latest blogger darling, as swarms of online film geeks prematurely crowned it the summer’s big sleeper. This hyperventilating fan base even convinced Snakes’ distributor, New Line Cinema, to up the movie’s rating to R, to ensure a gorier, more venomous snake fest.

To see life through this kind of fisheye lens, in which anyone who claims a class membership and wants to see something happen, represents that entire class in this desire, must result in taking in a picture that is unsettling at times. How does this make sense? It’s like saying, a telemarketer called me last night, I told him to fuck off (as I almost always do), so people who talk on the phone must be deeply unsettled at the rebuke I delivered to the telemarketer. What the hell??

Two factors at work here. One: This Kluger fellow perceives his livelihood to be threatened by bloggers. Two: He comes from a world in which, when you’re the protagonist and you want to see something happen, rarely does the occasion arise, nor should you expect it to, where you can use the two hands God gave you to make it happen. No, the only way you can make things happen, anytime, anywhere, is to take all the antagonists who have something to do with stopping it from happening, and write something to minimize them. That’s the only way anything gets done in the world inhabited by people like him.

And so he hates blogs…which makes no more sense than hating typewriters. To make them go away, he becomes a cheerleader-of-misery, rah-rah-ing away when the bloggers get something wrong — and, presumably, muzzling anybody who rah-rahs away if a “blogger” gets something right. Said muzzling, I would have to assume, to be executed by writing something to minimize the opposing-side cheerleader. It’s all just cheers and catcalls; somebody actually doing work, is a foreign concept.

And the bloggers threaten his industry, so they must die.

Oh, it’s all just so much speculation and conjecture. I’m trying to give him the benefit of every doubt. Because the only other theory up with which I can come, is that Kluger is wombat-rabies bollywonkers pigshit crazy.

Does he have a driver’s license?

Pull Pin, Walk Away

The words of the first Muslim Miss England seem, at first blush, to be an innocent re-interpretation of Rule #1 for Living With Me, which is, if I’m gonna be accused of something I wanna be guilty.

Hammasa Kohistani made history last year when she was chosen to represent England in the Miss World pageant.

But one year on, the 19-year-old student from Hounslow feels that winning the coveted beauty title last September was a “sugar coating” for Muslims who have become more alienated in the past 12 months.

She said: “The attitude towards Muslims has got worse over the year. Also the Muslims’ attitude to British people has got worse.

“Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway. It will take a long time for communities to start mixing in more.”

Yeah that makes perfect sense already, see. I’m a Muslim, and I don’t blow people up, see, nor do I support acts of terror. But those dirty little western people with their decadent lifestyles and their movies made by the filthy Jew, keep accusing me of supporting terrorism…I figure, what the fuck, I might as well. And so, I “turn to terrorism” according to her.

It’s just the only logical thing to do. Get discriminated against…turn to terrorism. Two Muslims face discrimination, one turns to terrorism and the other one doesn’t…what does Ms. Kohistani have to say about the one that does not? Which of the Muslims has something to learn from the other? It appears she isn’t even considering this. It’s like she’s saying terrorism is obligatory, once you are “stereotyped.” Even the moderate Muslims are doing it, after all.

Life gets complicated in a great big hurry for Ms. Kohistani when one starts to ponder the course of action to be engaged with this useful epiphany…if we stop stereotyping, will the moderate Muslims stop supporting terrorism?

“It is not for me to answer how to get people to turn away from terrorism. The politicians don’t know what to do and I am just a 19-year-old.”

I see, I see. In a life-and-death situation, we’re supposed to have faith in this adorable little psychoanalysis of passive supporters of terrorism…surely, sufficient thought must have gone into it, to ensure it’s an accurate reflection of what’s going on. Oopsie, though! Not enough thought has gone into it, to figure out what to do with it. That’s for somebody else. Cut her some slack, she’s only nineteen. But when she assigns blame, against the direction of common sense, don’t worry she knows exactly what she’s talking about there. She’s more an authority on who’s-at-fault, than Santa is on who’s-naughty-who’s-nice.

Just don’t ask her what to do…because, you see, that would require some responsibility being invested in the veracity of her theory.

This stupid girl is simply unaccustomed to a culture in which people are free to form their own opinions. You say stuff, and what you get to decide in such a culture is — the stuff you say. Nothing more. Just the gutteral sounds. People get to interpret that however they wish, which is where she’s having a tough time fitting in. She’s clearly expecting to distribute a message of “they who support terrorism are not at fault, the blame goes to those who notice them supporting terrorism” — and for people to actually pick up on that message. Exactly the way she wants them to. Why not? It’s what she wants, she’s the one speaking, and it’s not like people should be free to form their own thoughts about what she said. It doesn’t even seem to be occurring to her what a thoroughly miserable job she’s done of representing a) England b) Muslims c) the pageant d) nineteen-year-olds and e) pretty women.

Thanks to her incredibly ignorant comments, just speaking for myself, I’ve got a fresh impulse to get the voting age raised, throw some tea into Boston harbor, repeal womens’ suffrage and profile at the airports. Isn’t it ironic? That impulse is the natural result of the very logic she’s trying to use…except it doesn’t seem to occur to her, that the principle may have an effect on anyone besides the poor, oh-so-put-upon, “yeah we support terrorism but we have a great excuse for doing so” Muslims.

I guess if you’re a Muslim, you get to make decisions about what’s going on, and what to do about it…and if you’re not, you don’t.

What a dirty, racist little bitch.

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XVIII

Bullwinkle Blog makes a great point. I have nothing to add.

Bush Is Wrong About The Democrats.
Posted by: Bullwinkle in General on September 1, 2006 at 5:45 am

In Latest Push, Bush Cites Risk in Quitting Iraq

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 31 � President Bush said Thursday that withdrawing now from Iraq would leave Americans at risk of terrorist attacks “in the streets of our own cities,” and he cast the struggle against Islamic extremists as the costly but necessary successor to the battles of the last century against Nazism and Communism.
:
The speech, the first of five addresses on national security Mr. Bush plans to deliver between now and Sept. 19, was part of an orchestrated White House offensive to buttress public support for the Iraq war and portray Democrats as less capable of protecting the country, a theme that has proved effective for Republicans in the past two elections.

Even as Mr. Bush spoke, a series of explosions ripped through Baghdad, providing more images of a sort that he acknowledged have been “sometimes unsettling” to the public.

Democrats aren�t less capable of defending the US, just less willing. It�s all a matter of priorities and the only identifiable priority the Dems seem to have is to regain power. The end result of that happening would have them taking charge of the same military, same weapons, same infrastructure and same resources. That would leave them with the same capabilities we currently have to fight terrorism. The problem is that they won�t do it. [emphasis mine]

This isn’t an argument about what to do in Iraq; if it was that, the Democrats would be able to figure out what their plan was, and articulate it to the rest of us. No, it’s an argument about what should be of concern to everybody. Love the war or hate it, while it’s going on, it’s a little tough to get worked up about the issue of fleecing thirty-something apartment rats to pay for free Viagara for rich old people with summer homes.

It doesn’t matter what your political party is…people understand, down to the marrow in their bones, when dirty little men roam the planet wanting to blow us up, whatever nanny-state entitlement programs we have inextricably entangled into our constitutional government, is purely a moot issue. It’s something to be pondered when danger has passed…or, when we choose to remain ignorant of it. Democrats don’t want to retreat from the War on Terror, necessarily. What they want, is for us to simply stop talking about it, so the fecal-sandwich bake sale can start up again.

Shockingly Permissible

I see that Stop The ACLU has a decent write-up on this brain-damaged idea to put the assassination of President Bush into a movie.

No, I don’t call it a brain-damaged idea because I’m in favor of censorship. I’m in favor of free speech. Free speech, with very narrow common-sense exceptions, which don’t apply here.

I’m also in favor of pointing out when tiny little groups of people start to dictate what “everyone” else has to be thinking, and when they can get away with it and then cover it up. The message has gone out: You shouldn’t even talk about the President being assassinated, UNLESS, the President has oafish national security policies and mispronounces the word “nuclear” like that idiot President Bush…then it’s okay.

Two-thirds of a century ago, if the President used a wheelchair you weren’t allowed to take pictures. Now you can…uh…

It�s an extraordinarily gripping and powerful piece of work, a drama constructed like a documentary that looks back at the assassination of George Bush as the starting point for a very gripping detective story.

It�s a pointed political examination of what the War on Terror did to the American body politic.

Yeah right, what HE said.

Retard.

Cranial Fulmination

This was posted a whole week ago on The Nose On Your Face. Thank goodness for the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler or I’d never have found out about it.

Fox News personality Greta Van Sustern died from what doctors are calling a “cranial fulmination” yesterday after a cruel hoax went horribly wrong. A spokesman for Van Sustern explains.

“I received a phone call from what seemed to be a very nice couple last night who said they had a hot news tip,” explained On The Record producer Jason Teague. “They identified themselves as the Dover’s; Ben and Eileen. The story they told was so pure, so wonderful that I should have seen it as a hoax. When I told Greta the details she began to tremble, her eyes opened very wide and she whispered ‘Oh dear lord. The prophecy has come true.’ Then she was… she was… gone.”

No, no, Van Susteren is still around. It’s a j-j-j-JOKE. Click…read…

On the Blah, Blah, Blah

Item!

I live in Sacramento. Due to certain events in my personal life this year, during the period from about Christmas to right about now, I have not gotten out much. I live about a mile from work, so I get to see developments on the road within that mile on a daily basis. I have to pick up my boy and drop him off again, so I get to supervise events on the freeway and backroads within, oh, twenty miles — about weekly. Outside of that, my motoring has been entirely occasional.

Which, I think, puts me in a great position to comment on trends. So, on the chattering away on cell phones by my fellow motorists: From my perspective, within the Big Tomato, it has been on a rise I can only fairly call meteoric. I would say three years ago it was one out of ten drivers, two years ago it was two out of ten, last year it was three out of ten, now it’s nearly half of them. Chatting away, 75 miles an hour, maybe 85, maybe more, blah, blah, blah.

Item!

I have gotten really pissy about drivers texting away, not necessarily blabbing away, behind the wheel. Although I’ve done it, plenty of times. It’s one of those things that is so wrong, it doesn’t matter if I’ve done it or not. But while maintaining my laser-like focus on the subject at hand, as any decent writer does, I allowed myself to wander down a bunny trail…

One more thing. When time and space permit, I’d like to expound on my little rant about talking on cell phones, without the benefit of hands-free devices.

We have studies that say when you talk on a hands-free device, your level of distraction is on par with what you’d be experiencing if you held the cell phone up to your face. Those studies are bullshit, you hear me? I live in the Big Tomato. I see people talking on their cell phones all the time — not-hands-free. Up to their faces.

It is…let me stress this properly…it is PHYSICALLY FREAKIN’ IMPOSSIBLE to do a check to your blind spot, before a lane change, while talking on a cell phone, without being completely absolutely no-mistakingly obvious that you’re doing a head-check. It is a deeply conspicuous movement you have to do. Those fuckers are not doing it, I guaran-damn-tee you. It is up to everybody else to get the hell out of their way, they know not what the hell they’re doing. I can personally vouch for this, swearing an oath to that effect, just by watching them. They are glancing in their passing mirrors — if they’re even doing that — and then breezily just sliding on over. Hope you’re not there when they do.

Item!

The Sacramento state assembly has passed a bill that would impose a $50 fine on drivers caught blah, blah, blah-ing away on their cell phones behind the wheel.

Item!

The morning guys on the radio, who — deeply distrust liberals, but aren’t all about promoting Republicans, just want to find the common-sense solution, and on the way do as decent a job as they can spotting the crooks, liars and charlatans and talking-point-peddlers — thereby ending up agreeing with me a whole lot of the time — blasted the bill, which, by the way, has my whole-hearted support. Their position is that anyone who believes hands-free devices make your phone conversation safer, such as myself, is being duped by a bunch of crooks. My position is that he who believes hands-free devices don’t make the conversation safe, is the one getting duped by a bunch of crooks.

Item!

The guys and I had a brief water-cooler conversation about this yesterday, following the radio program…the following points came up.

So anyhoo…we live in the Age of Google. I don’t have to speculate on this stuff. I don’t have to form my prejudices on extremely short-sighted and under-informed opinions like some guy living a hundred years ago. I’m a twenty-first century search-engine-literate man. I can draw upon a tiny sampling of items, and form my short-sighted and under-informed prejudices based on those.

So let’s get to it.

Actually, I wasn’t too surprised by what I found. Let’s take the biggest group first…I found, in reverse chronological order, this and this and this and this and this. Just what was promised; “lots of studies,” maybe even, “all the studies.” One problem: The same names keep popping up. Frank Drews. David Strayer. William Johnson. Human Events.

This creates two issues. Issue One, whether the effort is deliberate or not, the public is being programmed. It isn’t hard to find people who consider themselves to be well-educated on this issue, willing to chirp up — even taking the initiative to chirp up — and chime in with that “independent” thought, “all the studies say talking on a headset is just as distracting as holding the cell up to your face.” Well, it really isn’t “all” the studies…although to be fair to Drs. Drews, Strayer and Johnson, and Human Events, there are some other studies saying the same thing like this one and this one. So I’m not going to go so far and say “Aha! It’s just Dr. Drews, Strayer and Johnson, and Human Events, nobody else has studies saying that!” because that would not be true.

The point stands nevertheless. Unanimity amongst the “studies,” as is often the case, turns out to be purely an illusion. Those three are, intentionally or not, “flooding” the study pool. Note the timeframe. They went on a tear in 2003, again in 2004, again in June of this year, and again just now.

Which brings us to Issue Two. Why do Drs. Drews, Strayer, Johnson, and Human Events keep doing this? It really doesn’t matter what their financial ties are, when you think about it. Something is motivating them to do this. They have a bug of some kind up their collective butts, and they like to do “studies” that find a certain conclusion. Well, studies aren’t supposed to be doing that; studies are supposed to find whatever conclusion the data will tell the studies to find. Could Drs. Drew, Strayer and/or Johnson set out on one of their studies, gather the data, and, looking over it to find the patterns in the most scientific, objective, unbiased way possible — come to learn something contrary to their own biases? If so, would the conclusion make it into print? Let’s just say I have my doubts.

That you can go the other way — gather the data, look it over with a bias toward saying the opposite, and, whether influenced by the bias or not, post a conclusion compatible with that bias — has been proven. Plantronics, which makes bluetooth headsets much like the Cardo unit I use, has financial ties to yet another study two years ago that said the exact opposite.

A new study finds that drivers’ reaction time, accuracy and consistency of speed improved significantly when they used a headset with their cell phone, compared with using a handheld phone.

The study is one of the few to analyze physical impairment experienced while driving and using a mobile phone; to date most other studies have focused solely on the mental distraction of using a mobile phone while driving.

The study was commissioned by Plantronics, which manufactures headsets. It was conducted by Design Science, an independent human factors research firm that has conducted other driving-related studies for a wide range of organizations including the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Now this blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, is named after a library administrator who figured out the size of the earth before the Time of Christ, by peeking into holes in the ground. We’re all about ignoring studies…or, at least, subordinating the studies to our own observations, when studies and our observations run in directly opposite directions. And our observation is this:

People who do lane changes to the left, when they talk on cell phones held up to their left ears, do not check their blind spots. They simply don’t. It’s provable. And it’s asserted pretty substantially, to the point you could bet serious money on it with high confidence, they’re not even checking their passing mirrors.

They just move over.

It’s easily observed. It’s proven. If a study says otherwise, the study is wrong. If these chuckleheads were learning as much about their blind spots while talking on their cell phones, as well as I learn about my own blind spot when I’m on a hands-free device, their body motions would be so incredibly awkward, and so easily observed, there would be no mistaking it…and they’d probably be imposing a wholly different traffic hazard just going through that snaky body motion. It borders on the physically impossible. And to do the proper head check without me being able to see you’re doing it, protrudes well into that neighborhood of impossibility. It simply cannot be done.

And like I said the other day, those fuckers are not checking their blind spots, they’re just moving over without looking.

This is about 99% of the folks talking on cell phones without the benefit of a hands-free device. And forty percent of the folks on the road, give or take, are doing exactly that. It’s scary, scary stuff.

I’m pretty big on the libertarian, freedom-from-tyranny angle. I’m one of the “Where does it talk about fire halls in the Constitution, huh?” kinds of guys. But I know of no constitutional provision, state or federal, direct or implied, that calls up a problem with a state regulation against phone use while driving.

And, much as I hate to use those four words heralding the arrival of the nanny state, the four words do apply…the time has come.

But it should be noted, we have been here before.

Update 9/1/06: Flashback to this great piece of faux-sexist humor from Car & Driver that was brought to my attention back in May.

This morning on I-95, I looked over to my left and there was a woman in a brand new Cadillac doing 65 mph with her face up next to her rear view mirror putting on her eyeliner.

I looked away for a couple seconds and when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane, still working on that makeup.

As a man, I don’t scare easily. But she scared me so much; I dropped my electric shaver, which knocked the donut out of my other hand.

In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel, it knocked my cell phone away from my ear, which fell into the coffee between my legs, splashed and burned Big Jim and the Twins, ruined the damn phone, soaked my trousers and disconnected an important call.

Damn women drivers!

Memo For File XXIII

This is about knots…with an emphasis on useful stuff you need to know for sailing…

This Is Good XX

This is the paradox to writing about politics, and to writing in general as well, I think. You create something thoroughly enjoyable, and when you do, much of the time you narrow down the audience. To create material that re-opens the potential audience, oftentimes you have to water down the quality of said material.

Our blogger pal Good Lieutenant at Mein Blogovault has a hilarious post up that mirrors what he wrote for the Jawa Report. It summarizes the whole utterly ridiculous Plamegate affair for the benefit of…well, I’m afraid, for the benefit of those who are such die-hard political junkies that they don’t need to be told what happened. So as a practical matter, the audience has been narrowed down to something needle-thin. But for entertainment value, you should head on over and take a look…

…Joe Wilson is a liar and a hack. Valerie Plame is a super-secret media whore. Rove is a non-factor. Novak was doing his job. Russert is silent. Mitchell is silent. Bush is vindicated. Cheney is off the non-hook. Keith Olbermann is a jackass. Chris Matthews is in catatonic depression. Mark Ash and Jason Leopold are on suicide watch….

The whole thing reads just like that.

Comedy GOLD, Lieutenant. Your temporary field promotion to Captain is in the mail.

Now, some nice folks out there might not be political “junkies,” like I guess I am since I understood every word of the Lieutenant’s manifesto, and was laughing my ass off about it. Other folks might, similarly, understand all of it, but might have friends and family who would not. So for those who need a “primer” on this utterly ludicrous scandal-that-never-wuz, I submit this primer put together by Christopher Hitchens. Chock full of good protein, but easily digested.

In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has�like Robert Novak’s�long been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalists�Michael Isikoff and David Corn�who did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.

Have fun. Just don’t expect the labors of your reading to actually conclude in anything of substance. Part of the reason that the summary of this whole thing is noteworthy, is, that the substance leading to that summary, is anything but.

I guess that’s politics for ya. We keep on assuming everything will make sense in the end. From where do we get that notion? We’re constantly left asking ourselves this…and the next thing that pops up, we go right back to assuming it again.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form XV

Thing I Know #138 is: It’s very difficult to acquire good judgment without experience. It’s very difficult to acquire experience without bad judgment.

Now, I don’t know if Dr. Thomas Sowell reads my blog. I would suspect hardly anybody does. But how, then, do you explain this gem which appeared within the good doctor’s “random thoughts” yesterday on Townhall.

Someone said that good judgment comes from experience — which in turn comes from bad judgment.

I’ve been robbed, but I’m not calling the police. I’m quite flattered…besides of which, I can’t claim credit for inventing this in the first place. All I can claim to have done, is to have personally verified there’s a lot of truth in it, and I suspect many others can make the same claim.

But now we’re settling into a pattern of suspecting, with no small amount of self-deprecating humor, that perhaps Doctor Sowell is among the “nobodies” who never read my blog. Eh, perhaps it’s a remote possibility, but it’s fun to think about. And in all seriousness, it would be a high honor if it were true.